Category: North Yorkshire

Beltane Revisited

It’s a mere 18 months or so since I reblogged my post about Beltane, but I’m doing so again because it fits so well with my last post celebrating Thornborough Henges.

Beltane at ‘The Stonehenge of the North’

May 1st 2016

Not much further than a mile from us as the crow flies lies Thornborough Henge. It’s a prehistoric monument consisting of three giant circular earthworks. Constructed 5000 years ago by the first Neolithic (New Stone Age) farmers, it was probably an enclosure for their ritual gatherings. The Henges became an important centre in Britain for pilgrimage and trade, although its exact purpose still remains a mystery.

It sends shivers down my spine to think that this ancient piece of our history lies just a short walk from our home.

An ariel view of Thornborough Henges (photo courtesy of Historic England)

We can visit it any time we choose, simply to tramp round and try to imagine it in its heyday, and we’ll have the place to ourselves.  Not on May Day though.  Today is the Gaelic feast of Beltane, half way between the spring and summer solstices.  It’s a day to mark the beginning of summer. Sadly, today is very cold, rather windy and a bit wet.

Back in pre-historic times, rituals were held on this day to protect the cattle, crops and people, and to encourage growth. Bonfires, deemed to have protective powers, were lit.  For many centuries these practices died out.  But nowadays, at sites like Thornborough, pagans, Wiccans, New-Agers and lovers of history and tradition gather once more to celebrate the renewal of life and growth.

Today I was there too.  For an hour at least, for the opening ceremony. Brrr!  It was cold.

The Green Man and his horn.

I was strangely moved.  The Green Man, representing rebirth and the cycle of growth was our Master of Ceremonies.  He invited us all to join hands, whether friends or strangers, in fellowship, and shout out three times the invocation to new life. We hailed Brigantia, Celtic goddess of Northern England.  Then at his bidding and as he sounded his horn, we turned to the east and welcomed the summer rains.  We turned south to welcome the sun (who was coyly absent today), to the west to welcome summer winds, and to the north where the wolves apparently are.

Welcoming the West Wind.

Then a man, naked from the waist upwards save for his covering of woad-coloured paint, leapt among us bearing the flaming torches which would offer us all protection over the coming months.

Protective flames.

And that was the ceremony over.  Dancers entertained us.  They seemed to me to owe much to flamenco and to middle-eastern belly dancing traditions, but we all cheered them on with enthusiasm.

I shan’t be there this year for the closing ceremony.  I’m still thawing out.  But weather permitting, I’ll certainly go along next year.  Will you come along too?

We haven’t been along since: cold May Days, Covid – all the usual tired excuses. But we definitely should make the effort this year.

For Fandango’s Flashback Friday

READ ALL ABOUT IT! STONEHENGE OF THE NORTH!

Just over a week ago, a couple of fields within two miles of our house hit the national news. Those of us who live round and about have long known about our very own piece of history: not as visually impressive from ground level at Stonehenge but still thrilling to think about. Now we can share it with the rest of you.

Thornborough Henges are two enormous, human made earth-circles – 200+ metres in diameter, from the neolithic/early bronze ages: somewhere between 3, 500 BCE and 2,500 BCE. Imagine the effort required to construct such circles, originally about 5 metres high, thought to have been coated with bright white gypsum, making them an extremely visible and potent part of the landscape. Why were they built? Nobody is sure, but they almost certainly had a spiritual purpose. Ritual is still important at this site. On Friday, I’ll re-blog a post I wrote one May Day about the ceremony of Beltane held here every year.

To walk here, with only the henge itself surrounding us, in an area normally busy with fields of crops or sheep, with woodland, and with gravel pits, is even now an almost unnervingly peaceful experience.

The henges have rather suffered from rabbits and livestock over the centuries. Now, the monuments have been gifted by Tarmac and by Lightwater Holdings to Historic England and to English Heritage and their future will be more secure.

There is a third henge too. This was planted up as woodland in the Victorian period. Though it’s not a large wood, it’s a peaceful place where I love to go and stroll and spend quiet moments, disturbed only by birdsong. Here it is in summer.

At ground level, it’s impossible (for me) to get decent photos of the henges. I offer you just one, as my feature photo, and then leave the rest to this YouTube video, courtesy of the Guardian.

Come and visit. You can pop in for a chat here afterwards. I’d love to meet you!

Monday Portraits of Dozens of Sheep

It’s Sheep Central round here. More than can ever – surely – enter the food chain. Far more than the wool trade requires. At shearing time, you’ll pass barns full of discarded fleeces, not worth the effort of gathering up and attempting to sell them. The sheep are well-fenced here – usually – so they don’t get out and browse the grass to the very ground, or maraud in any woodland they find. All the same, I do rather wonder – why so very, very many?

But here are two handsome enough specimens –

And here are some hungry sheep, requiring a top-up of food.

And here’s one on the moor above Dallowgill. Monarch of all she surveys.

Flashback Friday Looks Skywards

Eight years ago, none of us knew that five years later, our local tracks – the only ones permitted to us during our Lockdown Daily Exercise – would become almost as familiar to us as our own garden path. This is a post I wrote about a nearby walk on January 27th 2015, when I thought that I’d seen all there was to be seen locally. I was wrong as it happened, and later realised how very much more there was to discover when Lockdown provided the incentive. For Fandango’s Flashback Friday.

Only Sky

The days are short
The sun a spark
Hung thin between
The dark and dark.


John Updike, 'January', A Child’s Calendar

A bright winter’s afternoon.  Just time, before the evening cold sets in, to get out for a couple of hours of brisk walking: 5 miles or so along familiar paths.  So familiar that this time, I focus on the sky: changeable, unpredictable.

Sometimes it’s moody, sometimes cheerful, sometimes simply rather grey and colourless: at other times dramatic, particularly towards sunset.  Come and walk with me to watch the clouds.

Postcards from 2022

How to summarise 2022 in just a few photos? That’s what the Lens-Artist Challenge demands of us this week. What makes it so hard is that a memory is invested in every photo. My own favourite photos may demonstrate no particular skill, but can transport me – and not you – straight back to a treasured moment. Ah well, let’s give it a go, and see what I can find that we can all enjoy.

Let’s book-end the year with ordinary pleasures: Fountains Abbey in springtime, and in late autumn…

Let’s remember summer with – here – an extraordinary sight: Scar House Reservoir, almost unable to do its job of providing water.

Scar House Reservoir in August 2022.

Let’s have a look at happy moments: Ripon’s first Theatre Festival took to the streets, Masham’s annual Sheep Fair returned after a couple of years’ Covid-hiatus. And my family enjoys one of life’s simpler pleasures: curling up with a good book.

Memorable May: a fantastic few days in the Balkans: North Macedonia, Albania and Greece, to enjoy its wildlife. A very few photos stand in for the whole experience of this area, still in many ways rooted in its traditional past.

Shepherds on the move all day and every day. leading their sheep and goats in quest of pasturage.

… and not forgetting the stars of the show: peacocks at Lake Ohrid.

The header image shows Lake Prespa, and the island of Agios Achillios, where we spent a few days.

In Catalonia with The Barcelona Branch of the family, we had an unforgettable trip to what may be The World’s Best Museum, CosmoCaixa, Barcelona.

We’ll finish off with Christmas lights at Eltham Palace. It was so cold, no wonder my fingers slipped!

The Heavens – and all their water supplies – on his shoulders

Atlas bears the weight of the heavens on his shoulders as he gazes at Castle Howard. Who knew that the heavens constantly gush babbling geysers of water which then fall to earth? Those of us who live in England might not be surprised: this statue shows us that it must be so.

In Ancient Greek mythology, Atlas was one of a race of giants, the Titans, waging war on Zeus, King of the Gods. In defeat, his punishment was to spend eternity holding up the heavens.

As on Saturday, I’m taking refuge from the cold by posting pictures of sunnier times.

For Jez’s Water, Water Everywhere

What have diagonal lines ever done for me?

That is the question posed by Patti, for this week’s Lens Artists’ Challenge #228. Well, not done for me exactly, but done for my photos. Have a photos diagonal lines invited us in, encouraged us to explore the picture, or to focus on some detail?

Let’s have a look, and have a bit of a trip out too.

We’ll start off close to home, one cold wintry morning as I went to get the paper. Those rays of sunshine enlivened the scene, and my mood.

Here are two more, from just down the road. A tree which instead of reaching skywards, leans across the woods to demand a place centre-stage for the whole shot. And ox-eye daisies splicing the image in half, showing us there’s countryside, not a garden beyond.

A trip to the seaside? Alnmouth in Northumbria?

This quiet beach looks dramatic when the tide’s out.

Brussels now. A bank of plate glass windows reflects the opposite side of the road to dramatic effect. Monochrome too, for Bren’s Mid-Week Monochrome.

Off to Spain now. All those dizzy hairpin bends in Cantabria invite us to explore.

Then two more scenes – one from Cádiz, the other from Valencia. Those diagonals pull us in to explore the cathedral in one, the reflections in the other.

This shot, from Alicante, uses the ropes on a yacht as a frame for the scene beyond.

Alicante

I’ve hesitated over whether to include this last shot in what is essentially a light-hearted post. But this photo – not a particularly original one as so many others have taken similar shots – has stayed with me. It’s Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. These are the railway lines that brought so many thousands of Jews on their very last journey. I wrote about it here.

I decided on balance to include it, as the relative optimism I felt when I wrote that post five years ago has disappeared in the light of world events over the last couple of years: and we shouldn’t forget.

Walking in fog

Yesterday was foggy. All day. Yesterday, when I took a photo – the header photo – at Fountains Abbey, it was so murky I thought it could pass for a sepia image. I’m going to chance calling it monochrome anyway. And since we could barely see ahead of us, we focussed on the ground below. And were rewarded. This is rather a fine tree trunk, I think.

And these Giant Funnel Fungi are rather fine too. Regular readers know that I am keen on foraged food, but I’m glad I didn’t bring these home. Here’s what the website Wild Food says: ‘A large chunky mushroom which can be found in fairly large numbers and is edible to most but can cause gastric upsets in some. This doesn’t really matter as the mushrooms are usually infested with maggots, even when young, making them more maggot than flesh. Not so appetising then … but look how huge they are! That’s a bit of my boot at the bottom of the frame.

This is the last day of November, a month in which Becky has been encouraging us to get out walking, whatever the weather. I’m glad I’ve joined her, and everyone who’s participated in Walking Squares. Thank you!

And I’m going to see if my header photo squeezes in as a Mid-Week Monochrome.

I nearly forgot. It’s destined for Jo’s Monday Walk as well.